Colette Clover Jeans

Description

This is such a FAB trouser pattern! I love love love 60s style trousers- even more so after watching Celia rock some in ‘The Help’ I just think the high waist, slim leg and no fly-front combination is soooo elegant and flattering.

My plan for these had always been primarily as blue jeans. I am a BIG jeans wearer and have wanted some in this vintage, feminine style for ages. I have never found any to buy and so whipping my own up seemed like an ideal solution.

I decided to make up version 1 but omitted the little pockets in the waistband as I just wanted a
completely smooth finish in this area and also didn’t really think I would personally use them anyway as I’m not a big pocket girl!

Luckily I still had the lilac cotton stretch twill in my stash that I had picked up last summer to use as toile fabric for these. It was only a £4 a metre from one of the shops (I forget which) on Goldhawk Road in London which is obviously more than I would usually pay for toile fabric!

Alas, it was imperative to use something that was the same composition as the fabric these would finally be made in (ie, 2-3 % spandex) and therefore an unavoidable cost.

I made these up in the Colette 0 and then pinned my alterations and transferred them back to the paper. Then I made up a toile of the altered pattern, tweaked the fit on those and then transferred the additional changes back to the paper and traced off a fresh paper pattern!

I have included a diagram below of all my adjustments, for an explanation of all of these adjustments please visit my sewing blog.

Strange fitting related problems tend to present themselves with trousers(largely in the crutch area!) and it can be hard to see exactly what needs changing in order to address them! So I thought I would explain what I changed where and why.

The difficult thing about this pattern (and most other trouser patterns for that matter) is getting the fit right; but the great news is that once you have these fitting they are SUPER speedy to sew up- a few seams, bit of overlocking and an invisible zip and you’re done and dusted!

I love these trousers so much and they are so comfortable. I have ordered some Candy pink stretch denim so plan to whip them up in that before the Spring arrives.

I think these would be great in black too, very Audrey- esque!

Have you tried the Clovers yet? Do you like making trousers?

Material Notes

I used a medium weight stretch cotton denim with 3% elastane. I tried out a pair in a much stretchier indigo denim fabric and they lost all their shape so where the pattern says ‘up to 3% spandex’ take heed!

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